|
Kurdistan Coalition: No problem with
postponing referendum on Kirkuk
10.9.2007
|
|
|
|
September
10, 2007
Baghdad, September 10, -- The Kurdistan
Coalition has no problem with putting off the
planned referendum on the situation in Kirkuk until
the end of this year, the head of the coalition's
parliamentary bloc Fuad Masoum said on Monday.
"We have no problem with postponing the referendum
on Kirkuk for two or three months or even more,"
Masoum said.
An Iraqi parliamentary vote on Saturday extended the
work of the Constitutional Amendments Committee
until the end of 2007, delaying the referendum on
Kirkuk's status that was expected by the end of
2007.
Masoum, who is also a member of the committee, said
that the proposed constitutional amendments do not
"conflict" with the referendum on Kirkuk. "The
majority of parliamentary blocs agree that article
140 should not be subject to constitutional
amendments," he said.
Meanwhile the head of the committee, Humam Hamoudi,
said on Saturday that the parliament's decision was
taken in the light of the committee's failure to
resolve several controversial issues, including
article 140.
Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution is related to
the normalization of the situation in Kirkuk, an
important and mixed city of Kurds, Turkmen,
Christians and Arabs. Kurds seek to include the city
in the autonomous Iraq's Kurdistan region, while
Sunni Arabs, Turkmen and Shiite Arabs oppose the
incorporation.
The article currently stipulates that all Arabs in
Kirkuk be returned to their original locations in
southern and central Iraqi areas, and formerly
displaced residents returned to Kirkuk, lies just
south border of the Kurdistan autonomous region, 250
km northeast of Baghdad.
A referendum, provided for in the Iraqi
constitution, was scheduled to be held by the end of
the current year on including the city into the
Kurdistan region.
VOI
* Kirkuk city is a Kurdistani city and it lies just
south border of the Kurdistan autonomous region and
it is not under the full control of Kurdistan
Regional Government administration, its population
is a mix of majority Kurds and minority of Arabs,
Turkmen.
The former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein forced
over 250,000 Kurdish residents to give up their
homes to Arabs in the 1970s, to "Arabize" the city
and the region's oil industry.
Based on Iraq's Constitution a referendum is to be
held in late 2007 to decide whether the oil-rich
Kurdish province should be annexed to the safe
semiautonomous Kurdistan region in Iraq's north.
Top |
Kurd Net
does not take credit for and is not responsible for the content of news
information on this page
|
® 